Bid Price – the set amount you are willing to pay in order to be shown for a specific keyword search result; because your Quality Rating also helps determine the Cost per Click this is not always the actual price you will end up paying

Impact: Don’t bid on keyword phrases where the return is minimal. Search for relevant phrases with acceptable search volumes and lower CPC.

Bounce Rate– the fraction of visitors who enter your site and leave before visiting another page. Because PPC Advertising pays for each click it is important to maximize the number of visitors performing an action on your website (reading more pages, providing contact information or making a purchase).

Impact: Stop bidding of keyword phrases or using Ad Copy that has high bounce rates. When these visitors bounce and don’t end up doing anything on your site, your ad dollar is being “wasted”.

Click through Rate (CTR)–the number of people who actually click on your Ad Text and proceed to your website divided by the total number of people who see your Ad Text (Clicks/ Impressions).

Clicks– the number of searchers clicking on your listing on the Search Results.

Impact: Again, give more attention to the ads attracting more clicks, relative to impressions.

Conversion Rate – the percentage of people who complete a specific action on your website such as fill out a quote request or make a purchase.

Impact: Use keyword phrases, ad copy and landing pages that have the highest conversion rates to your fullest advantage. Consider putting more of your PPC spend into these areas or trying to replicate the success factors of high conversion ad campaigns to under performing ad campaigns.

Cost per Acquisition – also known as the Cost per Conversion (CPC).

Impact: Does the cost you pay to acquire a customer profitable in the end?

Cost per click (CPC) – the price paid for each click from the results page for a specific keyword phrase which depends on your bid, your site’s quality score and other competitors’ bids.

Impact: At the end of the day does your total Cost-per-Click justify the return of new customers, branding, sales etc?

Cost per Conversion – the price paid for each conversion made. If you pay 50 cents for each click (CPC) but only 1 in 10 clicks results in a sale, your Cost per Conversion is $5.00.

Impact: At the end of the day does your total Cost-per-Click justify the return of the conversion?

Daily Budget– the set amount of money to be spent on PPC each day; your Ad Text will stop being displayed once this limit is reached.

Impact: Make sure you don’t spend your entire month’s budget in one day because you get more clicks that you expected.

Geographical or Location Targeting – the ability to choose specific areas for your Ad Placement, such as only in Los Angeles, California or only in Toronto, Canada.

Impact: Are your customers in one area or do you only service a specific city? Make sure your ads are only shown in your local area to save on costs and prevent advertising to customers you can’t service.

Google AdCenter– the platform developed by Google to create, bid and place PPC Ads.

Impact: Log in to your Google AdCenter or Adwords account on a regular basis to monitor your campaign and set up new campaigns.

Impressions– the number of times your Ad Text is shown to searchers.

Impact: A good metric for PPC Campaigns designed to increase brand exposure.

Keyword or Keyword Phrase – phrase assigned to a PPC Campaign that will ideally be used by searchers looking for the products or services on your website.

Impact: Make sure your ad copy and landing page is very relevant to the keyword phrase used by searchers to increase likelihood that they will click on your ad.

Landing Page– the page on your website the searcher is brought to when they click on your advertisement. Often custom landing pages are developed in order to satisfy the specific needs of the person searching.

Impact: Make sure the landing page is extremely relevant to the search term and the ad copy. You want your visitors to find what they are looking for right away and know the ‘next step’ to take whether it be order, buy, contact or call. A well developed landing page can decrease you bounce bounce rate.

Match– the options for keyword phrases that will trigger your Ad Text, which include:

Broad – ad text is shown for other similar or relevant variations of your keyword phrases.

Return on Investment – a ratio of the amount of money spent on the campaign to the amount of revenue generated from the campaign.

Impact: Measuring the effect of your PPC Campaign is extremely important. For the most part the ROI you measure is the minimum value as you can only measure the direct return but not brand value or attribution over the long term.

Visitor– a search engine user who clicks on your Ad Text shown for their search query.

Impact: Visitor experience should be your number one priority when developing your CPC Campaign. Google places a high value on “User Happiness”.

Carissa joined the team more than five years ago after graduating with her BBa in Marketing from the University of the Fraser Valley. Willing to take on anything, Carissa helps to fill in all the missing pieces. She stays busy looking for new marketing opportunities, keeping the company blog updated, blogging on behalf of clients, helping brands get social plus keeping clients updated on their campaign progress. In love with Houzz and Pinterest Carissa is finishing up her first major home renovation.